the Pine-apple: for the classification see Botany Index. In the natural method it ranks under the 10th order, Coronariae.

As the pine apple, on account of its highly flavoured fruit, is a desirable object to those who can afford the expense of raising it, we shall here enter somewhat into the detail of the most approved method of cultivation.—The plants are propagated by planting the crowns which grow on the fruit, or the suckers which are produced either from the sides of the plants or under the fruit: both which are found to be equally good; although by some persons the crown is thought preferable to the suckers, as supposing it will produce fruit sooner than the suckers, which is certainly a mistake. The suckers and crowns must be laid to dry in a warm place for four or five days, or more (according to the moisture of the part which adhered to the old plant or fruit); for if they are immediately planted, they will rot. The certain rule of judging when they are fit to plant, is by observing if the bottom is healed over and become hard; for if the suckers are drawn off carefully from the old plants, they will have a hard skin over the lower part, so need not lie so long as the crowns of those whose bottoms are moist. But whenever a crown is taken from the fruit, or the suckers from old plants, they should be immediately divested of their bottom-leaves, so high as to allow depth for their planting; so that they may be thoroughly dry and healed in every part, lest when they receive heat and moisture they should perish, which often happens when this method is not observed. If these suckers or crowns are taken off late in the autumn, or during the winter, or early in the spring, they should be laid in a dry place in the stove for a fortnight or three weeks before they are planted; but in the summer season, they will be fit for planting in a week at farthest.

These should be planted in a rich good kitchen-garden mould, not too heavy so as to detain the moisture too long, nor over light and sandy; but where this is wanting, you should procure some fresh earth from a good pasture, which should be mixed with about a third part of rotten neats dung, or the dung of an old melon or cucumber bed which is well consumed. These should be mixed six or eight months before they are used, but if it be a year it will be the better; and should be often turned, that their parts may be the better united, as also the clods well broken. This earth should not be screened very fine; for if you only clear it of the great stones, it will be better for the plants than when it is made too fine. You should always avoid mixing any sand with the earth, unless it be extremely stiff, and then it will be necessary to have it mixed at least six months or a year before it is used; and it must be frequently turned, that the sand may be incorporated in the earth so as to divide its parts: but you should not put more than a sixth part of sand; for too much sand is very injurious to these plants. In the summer season, these plants must be frequently watered; but you should not give them large quantities at a time: you must also be very careful that the moisture is not detained in the pots by the holes being stopped, for that will soon destroy them. If the season is warm, they should be watered twice a-week; but in a cool season, once a-week will be often enough: and during the summer season you should once a-week water them gently all over their leaves; which will wash the filth from off them, and thereby greatly promote the growth of the plants.

There are some persons who frequently shift these plants from pot to pot. But this is by no means to be practised by those who propose to have large well-flavoured fruit: for unless the pots be filled with the roots, by the time the plants begin to show their fruit, they commonly produce small fruit, which have generally large crowns on them; therefore the plants will not require to be new potted oftener than twice in a season. The first time should be about the end of April, when the suckers and crowns of the former year's fruit (which remained all the winter in those pots in which they were first planted) should be shifted into larger pots; i.e. those which were in halfpenny or three-farthings pots, should be put into penny or at most three halfpenny pots, according to the size of the plants; for you must be very careful not to over-pot them, nothing being more prejudicial to these plants. The second time for shifting of them is in the beginning of August; when you should shift those which are of a proper size for fruiting the following spring into twopenny pots, which are full large enough for any of these plants. At each of these times of shifting the plants, the bark-bed should be stirred up, and some new bark added, to raise the bed up to the height it was at first made: and when the pots are plunged again into the bark-bed, the plants should be watered gently all over their leaves, to wash off the filth, and to settle the earth to the roots of the plants. If the bark-bed be well stirred, and a quantity of good fresh bark added to the bed, at this latter shifting, it will be of great service to the plants; for they may remain in the same tan until the beginning of November, or some time latter, according to the mildness of the season, and will require but little fire before that time. During the winter, they will not require to be watered oftener than once a-week, according as you find the earth in the pots too dry: nor should you give them too much at each time; for it is much better to give them a little water often, than to over-water them.

You must observe never to shift those plants which show their fruit into other pots; for if they are removed after the fruit appears, it will stop the growth, and thereby cause the fruit to be smaller, and retard its ripening, so that many times it will be October or November before the fruit is ripe: therefore you should be very careful to keep the plants in a vigorous growing state from the first appearance of the fruit, because upon this depends the goodness and the size of the fruit; for if they receive a check after this, the fruit is generally small and ill-tasted.—When you have cut off the fruit from the plant whose kind you are desirous to propagate, you should trim the leaves, and plunge the pots again into a moderate hot-bed, observing to refresh them frequently with water, which will cause them to put out suckers in plenty; so that a person may be soon supplied with plants enough of any of the kinds, who will but observe to keep the plants in health.

The most dangerous thing that can happen to these plants is their being attacked by small white insects, which appear at first like a white mildew, but soon after have the appearance of lice; these attack both root and leaves at the same time; and if they are not soon destroyed, will spread over a whole stove in a short time, and in a few weeks entirely stop the growth of the plants by sucking out the nutritious juice, so that the leaves will appear yellow and sickly, and have generally a great number of yellow transparent spots all over them. These insects, after they are full grown, appear like bugs, adhering so closely to the leaves as not to be easily washed off, and seem to have no local motion. They were originally brought from America upon the plants which were imported from thence; and are probably the same insects which have destroyed the sugar-caness of late in some of the Leeward islands, for upon some sugar-caness which were sent Mr Miller from Barbadoes he observed great numbers of these insects. Since they have been in England, they have spread greatly in such stoves where there has not been more than ordinary care taken to destroy them. They have also attacked the orange-trees in many gardens near London, and have done them incredible damage; but they do not endure the cold of our climate in winter, so that they are never found on such plants as live in the open air. The only method yet discovered for destroying these insects, is by frequently washing the leaves, branches, and stems, of such plants as they attack, with water in which there has been a strong infusion of tobacco stalks. But this method cannot be practised on the ananas plants, because the insects will fasten themselves so low between the leaves, that it is impossible to come at them with a sponge to wash them off; so that if all those which appear to sight are cleared off; they will soon be succeeded by a fresh supply from below, and the roots will be also equally infested at the same time. Therefore, whenever these insects appear on the plants, the safest method will be to take the plants out of the pots, and clear the earth from the roots; then prepare a large tub, which should be filled with water in which there has been a strong infusion of tobacco stalks; into this tub you should put the plants, placing some sticks across the tub to keep them immersed in water. In this water they should remain 24 hours; then take them out, and with a sponge wash off all the insects from the leaves and roots, and dip the plants into a tub of fair water, washing them therein, which is the most effectual way to clear them from the insects. After which, you should pot them in fresh earth; and, having stirred up the bark-bed, and added some new tan to give a fresh heat to the bed, the pots should be plunged again, observing to water them all over the leaves, and this should be repeated once a-week during the summer season; for these insects always multiply much faster where the plants are kept dry, than where they are sometimes sprinkled over with water, and kept in a growing state. As these insects are frequently brought over from America on the ananas plants which come from thence, those persons who procure their plants from thence should look carefully over them when they receive them, to see they have none of these insects on them; for if they have, they will soon be propagated over all the plants in the stove where they are placed; therefore, whenever they are observed, the plants should be soaked (as before directed) before they are planted into pots.

Such are the directions generally given with regard to the culture of the pine-apple in this country. Of late, however, some very considerable improvements have been made in that article. The leaves of the oak have been substituted to the more expensive bark; and by treating the pines with them, they are found to thrive as well, and to produce as good fruit, as in the other method. Of the proper way of managing these leaves for the rearing of exotic plants, an account is given under the article Oak-Leaves. But the most considerable improvement is that mentioned in the 67th volume of the Philosophical Transactions, where a method is shown by William Bastard, Esq. of Devonshire, of raising these fruits in Water. His account of this method is as follows.

"Before I enter into the particulars of raising pine-apples in water, it will be necessary to tell you that my hot-house is covered with the best crown-glass, which I apprehend gives more heat than the common sort of green glass generally used for hot-houses. In the front part of the house, and indeed anywhere in the lowest parts of it, the pine-apple plants will not thrive well in water. The way in which I treat them is as follows. I place a shelf near the highest part of the back wall, so that the pine-plants may stand without absolutely touching the glass, but as near it as can be; on this shelf I place pans full of water, about seven or eight inches deep; and in these pans I put the pine-apple plants, growing in the same pots of earth as they are generally planted in to be plunged into the bark-bed in the common way; that is, I put the pot of earth, with the pine-plant in it, in the pan full of water, and as the water decreases I constantly fill up the pan. I place either plants in fruit, or young plants as soon as they are well rooted, in these pans of water, and find they thrive equally well: the fruit reared this way is always much larger, as well as better flavoured, than when ripened in the bark-bed. I have more than once put only the plants themselves without any earth, I mean after they had roots, into these pans of water, with only water sufficient to keep the roots always covered, and found them flourish beyond expectation. In my house, the shelf I mention is supported by irons from the top, and there is an intervening space of about ten inches between the back wall and the shelf. A neighbour of mine has placed a leaden cistern upon the top of the back flue (in which, as it is in contact with the flue, the water is always warm when there is a fire in the house), and finds his fruit excellent and large. My shelf does not touch the back flue, but is about a foot above it; and consequently the water is only warmed by the air in the house. Both these methods do well. The way I account for this success is, that the warm air always ascending to the part where this shelf is placed, as being the highest part of the house, keeps it much hotter than in any other part. The temperature at that place is, I believe, seldom less than what is indicated by the 73rd degree of Fahrenheit's thermometer, and when the sun shines it is often at above 100°: the water the plants grow in seems to enable them to bear the greatest heat, if sufficient air be allowed; and I often see the roots of the plants growing out of the holes in the bottom of the pot of earth, and shooting vigorously in the water.

"My hot-house (the dimensions of which it may be proper to know) is 60 feet long and 11 feet wide, the flues included; six feet high in the front, and 11 feet at the back of the inside of the house. It is warmed by two fires. A leaden trough or cistern on the top of the back flue is preferable to my shelf, as in it the pine plants grow much faster in the winter, the water being always warmed by the flue: of this I have seen the great benefit these last two months in my neighbourhood. It is not foreign to this purpose to mention, that as a person was moving a large pine-plant from the hot-bed in my house last-summer, which plant was just showing fruit, by some accident he broke off the plant just above the earth in which it grew, and there was no root whatever left to it: by way of experiment I took the plant, and fixed it upright in a pan of water (without any earth whatever) on the shelf; it there soon threw out roots, and bore a pine-apple that weighed upwards of two pounds."